Implantable medical devices (IMDs) may be used to deliver stimulation therapy to patients to treat a variety of symptoms or conditions such as chronic pain, tremor, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, neuralgia, urinary or fecal incontinence, sexual dysfunction, obesity, or gastroparesis. An implantable medical device may deliver stimulation therapy via leads that include electrodes located proximate to the spinal cord, pelvic nerves, stomach, or within the brain of a patient. In some cases, electrodes may be integrated with an implantable pulse generator, eliminating the need for leads. In general, the implantable medical device delivers stimulation therapy in the form of electrical pulses.
A clinician selects values for a number of programmable parameters in order to define the stimulation therapy to be delivered to a patient. For example, the clinician selects an amplitude, which may be a current or voltage amplitude, and pulse width for a stimulation waveform to be delivered to the patient, as well as a rate at which the pulses are to be delivered to the patient. Programmable parameters also may include electrode combinations and polarities. Multiple programs may be created and grouped together to provide stimulation program options to treat a condition.
Programs may be evaluated at the clinic. However, evaluation of all program options within a clinic would require more time than the patient could tolerate and be very expensive in terms of clinic time and resources. For this reason, during stimulation therapy, the patient may use an external programmer to select which group or program is used to provide stimulation therapy. In this manner, the patient is able to evaluate different programs or groups to determine the most efficacious treatment option. To effectively evaluate program options, the patient may need to browse through dozens of programs when evaluating therapy options. The process is more efficient than clinic evaluation but still time-consuming.